Coaches, scorekeepers and parents are encouraged to report youth sports events on this interactive blog. Selected reports will be used in print as the youth sports highlight of the day on the Plus section cover.

Youth sports for the week ending Dec. 16

To report your results, just add your report as a comment here. Look for information from the youth sports blog in the newspaper every day. Check the daily youth sports highlight on the bottom left corner of Page 1.

Three Marin swimmers made USA Swimming’s Scholastic 2006-2007 All-America team. To make the Scholastic All-American team swimmers must have a minimum 3.5 GPA and have participated in high level USA swim meets such as the US Nationals, Open Water Championships, Spring or Summer Sectionals, Junior Nationals or Spring Championships.

Elizabeth Kamai, age 17, who swims for North Bay Aquatics made USAA’s All America Scholastic Team with Honors. Honors status indicates she has achieved all A’s in high school. Elizabeth is a senior at Redwood High.

Sally Bellinger and Matt Herman of the Marin Pirates swim team also made the 2006-2007 USA Scholastic All-America team

A total of 1291 swimmers nationwide qualified for the 2006-2007 USA Scholastic All-America team.

MARIN COUNTY U14 GIRLS TEAMS NOVATO WILDCATS AND DIXIE BREAKERS IN STATE CUP SOCCER FINALS: The Dixie Breakers U14 Girls recreational soccer team finished a magical season at the CYSA North Founder’s Cup Soccer Tournament in Morgan Hill by taking 2nd place in Northern California. After finishing the regular Fall Season 13 and 0 and winning the Marin Inter League Championship, the team entered the Founder’s Cup to have a little fun and see what they could do against the best from leagues as far south as Bakersfield and as far north as the California/Oregon border. The Breakers started off strong by beating previously unbeaten Turlock, 1 to 0 in the preliminary round on a first half goal from Brittany Nielsen, and strong Breaker defense lead by Tess Dennison, Angela Owens, Teresa Dinter, Victoria Yoham and Loren RothBerry. In the next qualifying round game, the Breakers dominating the Union City Violet Rage, 4 to 0, outshooting them 27 to 0, with goals from Nielsen, Liliya Parkman, Joanne Zeidan and Eva Wilson, and strong play from Maureen McGuire. In the third preliminary round game, the Breakers qualified for the quarter finals by beating another previously unbeaten team from Santa Clara, 2 to 1 with still another goal from center-mid Brittany Nielsen and a game winner from Julia McKeag. In the quarters this weekend, the Dixie team continued their winning ways by beating the Petaluma Pink Panthers on a goal and an assist by Kimi Praun, and the winning goal by Joanne Zeidan.
The Breakers were definitely the underdogs in the semi-finals, having to play the the returning 2006 tournament champs Clovis West team, who had beat their previous four tournament opponents by a combine score of 17 to 0. The Breakers played with heart and spirit, holding off attack after attack by Clovis. Standout Dixie players were keeper, Bridget Carlin who stopped 20 Clovis shots, Tai Hallstein, Lauren Polson and sweeper Tess Dennison. Playing to a 0-0 tie through the regulation and two sudden death overtime periods, the game was finally decided in a 5 on 5 penalty kick shootout when Dixie upset Clovis 2 to 1 with goals from Victoria Yoham and Tess Dennison and diving saves from keeper Carlin. In the first ever all-Marin County CYSA North Championship game, the Breakers met the Novato Wildcats who had the same storybook road to the finals. These two teams even scrimmaged each other two times in preparation for the tournament, and split the warm-up games. The energy and excitement of the game was incredible, with the stands filled with Marin County fans. And it was appropriate that these two teams played solid for all 70 minutes, with the defenses holding strong and not allowing any real scoring threat up until the 68th minute when Novato broke through for the winning goal and championship. What a dramatic and fitting end for both teams’ seasons, and both teams should feel very proud for the great soccer they played throughout the season and tournament, and for representing Marin County youth soccer so well.
The Dixie Breaker final 2007 record was 18-1-0.

San Rafael High School Freshmen girls lost 34-35 to Elsie Allen on Saturday in Santa Rosa. The Lady Dawgs had a last second lay-up opportunity but unfortunately couldn’t finish. Katie Sebastian scored 20 points in the win, a career high!

San Rafael Fencer from The Marin Fencing Academy (of San Rafael), Takes Silver Medal in the Cadet Epee event at Northern California Division Championships; Sat. Dec. 15th in San Francisco.

Patrick Johnston, a Junior at San Rafael High and a member of MFA for nearly 3 years, placed 2nd in the Cadet Boy’s (Under-17) Epee event and qualifies to the Junior Olympics to be held in March at Charlotte, North Carolina.

After the 1st Preliminary Round, Patrick was seeded 2nd out of the 10 entrants; with a 4-1 record.

After winning his first two Direct-Elimination bouts (which go 3-three-minute periods or 15 touches, whichever comes first) by scores of 15-8 & 15-12, Patrick took 2nd in the Gold Medal Bout; coming back from a 12-8 deficit, but still coming up a bit short at 15-13 to a fencer from the Host Club: Golden Gate Fencing of San Francisco.

Garrett Mulasky, a Senior at Redwood High, competing in his first competition, did not fare so well; losing his 1st Direct Elimination Bout.

With the Summer Nationals for the 07-08 Season, being held in San Jose next June, Partick & Garrett will be joined by teammates Angelo Clute of Drake and James Shamilian of Terra Linda (who missed this last event due to the Flu and Finals studies, respectively) at the end of January; where they will try to Qualify for the National Championship’s Under-19 Boy’s Epee Team Event, via the NorCal Div. of the US Fencing Assn. Team Championships to be held in San Francisco.

Also fencing this weekend, were MFA members Ian Hartley of Novato and Hugo DeBernardo of San Rafael, both 9 years old; competing in the Bay Cup Youth-10 & Under Boy’s Foil event.

Out of a total field of 24, Hugo came out of the first Preliminary Round seeded 12th with a 3-2 record and Ian seeded 22nd, with a 1-4 record.

Unluckily, they drew each other in the 1st Round of the Direct Eliminations (which are a best 2 of 3, five-touch or 3-minute bout format); with Ian pulling the victory 2-1.

In his next bout, Ian drew the #3 Seed and was eliminated by a score of 2-0.

All in all, it was a great weekend for the Marin Fencing Academy fencers…(www.marinfencing.com, for info)

All are students of Maestro Stuart Phillip Kaufman; who coached the Youth-10 boys, with Asst. Instructor and Asst. Coaches, Richard Vidor & Tom Tully, with the older boys on saturday.

The Marin YMCA 5th grade boys Shootout was held on Saturday and Sunday Dec. 15 and 16. We had eight teams participating from all over the Bay Area – YMCA Ducks, St. Anthonys, St. Hillarys, St. Anselms, St. Francis(Sonoma), Half Moon Bay, El Cerrito Eagles, and Fairfield Ballers. The Championship game was the Eagles vs. the Ballers. This game turned out to be the best of the tournament with the Eagles winning in overtime, 46 – 45.